King of Games
by Atakiri Mizuyuki
Summary: Four years ago, the once-nameless Pharaoh, Atem, dueled with his closest friend and soul-reborn, Yugi Mutou, for the right to pass on into the Land of the Dead. At that time, for the first time, the Pharaoh was finally defeated and was finally allowed to pass on. But now he's back, and so is danger—and though he has Yugi and the Tombkeepers at his side, they might not be enough.
1. Prologue

_I didn't originally want to do this, but oh well. Carrying on warnings, notes, comments from the summary box as it's too short._

_There are no proper ships in here. I suppose there's some JoeyXMai, TristanXSerenity, and YugiXAnzu, but they are literally only brief, one-line mentions. I am not a puzzleshipper, and this story is meant to be Gen. However, if you ARE a puzzleshipper—or a shipper of anything else—and the story appeals to those feelings, then great. Interpret it as you like. But, for the sake of my sanity, know that I do not write it to be Puzzleshipping, or just about any other kind of shipping._

_Rated T because there might be mild language, possibly violence, but mostly because I rate everything T._

_Sorry if I sound really unpleasant right now and make the story seem off-putting—I'm having an off-day, and perhaps I shouldn't be writing this during such an off-day, but there you have it._

_I hope you enjoy. Please leave reviews if you have comments—it's the only way for me to see that people read and give the slightest care about this story._

-_-_-_ Prologue _-_-_-

His back arched and he screamed. Thick black liquid choked his throat and clung to his skin, to his body, holding down and pushing him inward, crushing his consciousness out even as his thoughts washed in. He tore at the stark darkness around him, at the fluid that was choking him crushing him into nothing.

Atem thought desperately, forcing understanding to come to his pale, faded consciousness. He felt like an incoming tide, only partially present on the shore that was reality, or at least this reality, or where even was he? He coughed and choked on black fluid, trying to clear it from screaming lungs.

Where was he? He was dead. So why did he feel so alive?

He screamed again, lashing out with his feet and clawing at the space above him with his fingernails. Black ooze fell like blood from his mouth. He couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything at all. He was on his back—he could tell that, now. The tide was coming in clearer. He was on his back, and his entire body ached, his heart strained under the pressure of trying to push thick, new blood through virgin veins, his fingertips grazed the edge of a thin, liquid-like rubber. A membrane.

The wordless, animalistic part of his brain shrieked and he clawed at the membrane like survival was what lay on the other side.

He was dead. He knew that. He had all of his memories—all of them, being a young Pharaoh in Egypt, dwelling within Yugi Mutou, for the first time in more than five thousand years losing a duel and winning the right to pass on. He had passed on. _He had passed on_. Why was he alive again?! Who had pulled him back?! _Why?!_

_HE WAS AT PEACE! AFTER FIVE THOUSAND YEARS, HE WAS AT PEACE!_

He kicked and thrashed and struggled and clawed at the membrane, at the fluid, with all the fury of the wordless, thoughtless part of his brain. He couldn't see, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't hear his own screaming as it tore through his throat. He had to get _out_. He had to get _out, out, out, out out out outoutoutoutoutout!_

The membrane split beneath his nails. He gasped, dim orange flight flaring behind his eyelids, his throat drawing in musty air and the black fluid that even now fell from around him, no longer trapped in the membrane. He hacked and coughed, trying to clear his throat, and forced his eyes open. They stung, and the light from the room seemed to pierce through his pupils and cut into his brain.

His body stretched and twitched with mindless instinct. His entire body arched, not with simple soreness, but with the stiffness of something newly breaking.

He tried to glance around, even as his heart raced and he struggled for breath.

His brown skin was completely bear, except for the black liquid that seeped off of him with the slow viscosity of congealed blood. He was on a slab of something hard, elevated above the floor, which, like the walls he could see, were dark yellowed sandstone, inscribed and painted with the characters of his life, the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt. Bowed along the floor were people, obscured in dark cloaks, their backs bent and not moving even for breath.

"What—" Atem began to say, a voice weaker than his body scraping and scalding an unused throat; he tried to raise his arm, but he couldn't.

His body went limp, his head lulled to the side, and he fell into an unconsciousness as deep as the death he had been drawn out of.


	2. Chapter 1

_Sorry for not having anything updated in a while. ;;;; This chapter took me a surprisingly long time to hash out, and I still have HOSTage.0 Chapter 5 to work on. Please forgive this chapter its… exposition. I have/had a lot that I need/ed to say. We should hit some action next chapter, and then my favorite part (Eeeeeegyyyyyyypt) the chapter after. But shhh, you didn't hear it from me! ;)_

-_-_-_ Chapter 1 _-_-_-

Atem awoke in a bed, this time.

It was much easier. His body felt stiff, but with sleep, not with newness, and his eyes were able to adjust to the dim light in the room when before they had been blown wide.

For all the world, it felt like he had simply slept for too long.

He pushed himself up so he was sitting, and the pressure it applied to his chest made him cough. There was no trace of the black fluid, but he could still taste it, all through the back of his throat. It was much, he imagined, like what both death and life tasted like.

The room he was in was small, and rather looked like an apartment. It was a single room, with a kitchen area vaguely blocked off in the direction of his feet, the front door a single, ugly industrial thing to its left. From his orientation he was in a bed tucked against the right wall, a large but simple desk against the wall to his left, and a small doorway he hadn't noticed before leading to an even smaller bathroom just beyond that. A thin line of light on the wall behind his head suggested a window covered by curtains, and besides for Atem himself, that was all the room had in it.

He climbed out of the bed and set his feet on the floor. His knees felt weak, but they didn't buckle when he shifted his weight on them, so that was enough. He wandered around the small room he was in, feeling his body and trying to get his bearings.

He was alive. He knew that. Even if there wasn't any proper proof, he could feel it in him, especially after spent so much time in an entirely different state. But how? This didn't feel like it had when he had shared the life of someone living—this wasn't a borrowed body, this was a _new_ body, and it was entirely his, and entirely his alone. The warmth of life he felt was from his own flame, and not just the drifting heat of another's. And even though his host's bright, vibrant life had eased that absence in Atem, it hadn't felt like this. This was _life_.

He glanced at the back of his hand, too rational and too regal to frown. The skin there was dark and rich, very different from the pale skin he had become used to seeing. Although it was slightly strange, it wasn't unfamiliar. Even if he had visualized himself as having the same pale skin as his host back when he had only been able to call himself "Yami", this was his true skin, the skin he had been born in.

So whatever state he had been brought back in, he was Egyptian, not Japanese.

Which brought to mind the very valid question of where he was. He knew if he had to explain it to someone they would laugh, but it felt to him like he was in Japan. He couldn't say what made him feel that way, as there was nothing to prove it one way or the other. Everything in the room was plain and standard—he had been to many places, and a poor apartment looked like a poor apartment no matter where you went. But he had visited many places, and this just felt like Japan. Yes, thoughts like that would definitely get him laughed at. Although Yugi might've understood.

He felt a sudden, terrible pang for Yugi that _did_ made his knees buckle. He collapsed, barely managing to catch his hand on the desk beside him before he fell to the floor.

_Yugi_. If Atem was alive, he could see Yugi again. How would he be? Happy? Still dueling at his desk with Joey, Tristan, Tea, and Bakura cheering and teasing at the sides? But how much time had passed? Would Yugi still be a young man? What if so much time had passed that he had children, grandchildren? What if he had already died?

He forced himself not to think of that—if such a thing were true, it would be far, far too cruel. He couldn't stand the idea of Yugi being dead. Even though Atem had seen the Land of the Dead, knew how pleasant a place it really was, the idea of Yugi having gone on without him, ahead of him, was horrible. He wasn't sure he could handle the procession of his second life if he knew his dearest and most beloved friend had died with Atem there to show him the way home.

So he didn't think about anything, and instead he made himself stand up, and he walked to the small kitchen, a half-circle of counters and a sink and a refrigerator. The refrigerator and cabinets and counters were all empty, and though the tap worked on the sink, there were no glasses for him to use. He could always tilt his head to the side and try to drink from it, careful to sweep his hair to the side, but that was hardly a respectable action for a Pharaoh, a chosen of the Gods.

Yugi driven to a dull ache in the back of his mind, he looked at the door, but he knew leaving the apartment wasn't an option. He couldn't imagine whoever had brought him back and placed him here would allow it, for one thing. For another, there were also more mundane restrictions on him—he had no money, no clothing besides the plain pajamas he had been put in, and no one to contact and no way to do so had he had them at all. He was alone, completely without resources, and unarguably at the mercy of the ones who had set him in this doll house and told him to run around.

He thought about trying the door anyway—after all, he had to check everything, didn't he? A new place, a new body, a new life. He was a king, not a toy, and he would do whatever it was that he wanted.

A reluctance crept through him, a feeling that he really oughtn't do that. He was ready to dismiss it—the worst that could happen to him was that he died, and it wasn't as if he didn't wish to return to that peace—when he realized it felt… _foreign_. Instead of the pushing the feeling away, he focused on it. But like holding sand too tightly, it slipped through his fingers and was gone.

In its wake it left a feeling of nausea. It had been subtle, and he hardly noticed, but he knew—_the will he had felt had not been his own._ And yet its pull was inexorable and inescapable, as much as if it had been his own thought, his own desire. His heart beat faster. There was a foreign thought, a foreign will in his mind—and one he might not always be able to distinguish from his own. Through more than five thousand years of death and life, his mind had always been the one place he was safe, the one thing he _had_ through five thousand years of moving and shifting. And now it was compromised. He, himself, the very person he knew himself to be, could no longer by trusted.

Was there someone in this world who truly had such power over him?

He had faced down Egyptian Gods, certain damnation, inescapable death, and the revival of _the_ manifestation of evil and cruelty in the world. But it was _now_ that he was shaking.

He forced himself away from the door, away from the kitchen, back to the desk and the bed that were now his. He couldn't keep thinking like this. If he did, it would destroy him. Just like before, his knees gave out, and he caught himself on the edge of the desk before he could fall entirely. He pushed himself to stand up, and when he did, his fingers rustled against papers he hadn't noticed before. The once-Pharaoh picked up the papers and glanced over them.

There were four pieces of paper, three large and stapled together. They were covered in black ink and looked very official—almost obnoxiously so. The text was in Japanese—something he was surprisingly pleased about—so it took him a moment to switch from the Egyptian mindset he had, without being aware of it, found himself in.

Was this going to be a constant adjustment he'd have to make? How tedious.

It was a registration pamphlet for Domino City University. Atem had heard about it a few times when he had been with Yugi and his friends—mostly when entrance exams for the upperclassmen had rolled around, and Joey would become sympathetically nervous for is own future. Tristan would swing an arm around Joey's neck and assure him not to be nervous—after all, the only place he even had a _chance_ of getting admitted to was Domino City University, and they practically accepted _anyone_ living in the city who had graduated from high school. Yugi would try to argue that Domino University was actually a very good school, but by then Joey and Tristan wouldn't be listening, caught up elbowing each other and throwing fake punches. Tea would look on in the background, equal parts exasperated and amused.

He really missed them.

The first page of the registration packet was tedious information; dress code, plagiarism policies, things like that. He skimmed through it, but it was all basic trivia and he didn't see what it could possibly have to do with him in his situation. The second page was more interesting, though Atem still wasn't sure how it applied to him or why it would be here. It was a schedule of university classes, five in all and spread out through the week so that each class took place for three hours a week—except for the earliest class, an English course, which met Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at nine in the morning. The other classes looked incredibly dull, or went over his head entirely. What was Calculus? Was that the name of a great leader of nations?

A line he hadn't noticed before at the top of the page made him freeze. It was a simple line of copy-and-paste text with the name of the student whose schedule this was printed along with a student ID number. But the name it was made out to was "Mutou Atem".

His immediate reaction was a convoluted mix of warmth at the fact that he had been given Yugi's family name and outrage at whoever the would _dare_ to treat him like some doll. He was not a child, to be subjected to the whims of adults without thought and without consequence!

The seething anger bled away as Atem forced himself to think rationally again. Whether or not he wanted to be, he had been enrolled at Dominto City University—the third page, a photocopy of his student information left no room for doubt—and as long as he was under the control of the people who revived him, this situation would neither be rectified nor reversed. He could attempt to not go, but he had a feeling that wouldn't be an option. The oily, filthy after-feeling of that separate will warned him so. He could try to deviate from what they wanted, but they wouldn't allow it.

And that was the real mystery of all this, wasn't it? Who "they" were. Who were the ones who had enrolled him in this college, had brought him back from the dead? Because they were the same people—he knew it, not in some supernatural way, but instinctively. Someone was messing with him, stringing him along, thinking they could make him dance like some marionette. But he was _not_ some puppet who would let his strings be pulled so easily, and he would make them see that.

He was the twice-alive Pharaoh, the savior of the world, the ender of the Shadow Games, the master of the Millennium Puzzle, and the one and true King of Games.

Whoever was playing with the forces of the world would quickly realize he was a force they hadn't reckoned for.

The fourth piece of paper was small and pale, and Atem only noticed It when he set the college packet down and it fluttered off the desk. As he bent down to pick it up, the memory flashed before him that this little scrap of paper had been set on top of the others.

In the center of its rough, hand-torn edges was only a single word:

GO

Atem's anger flared up again, but once more he shoved it down. He would take _no one's_ commands, but he truth was, he didn't have a choice. He knew he was in Domino City, Japan, but that was it. He didn't know when he was, or why he was here, or who had the power to pull him from death in the first place. That was another thing he had to add to his understanding—he was _alive_, really, properly alive, but what did that mean? And again, for what purpose? It had to be nefarious—one did not tap into such powers for wholesome reasons.

He glanced at the packet of papers and the command "GO" and felt his stomach churn and his head throb with barely controlled anger.

He was powerless. Completely and utterly and absolutely and helplessly and hopelessly and foolishly and pathetically and totally, totally powerless. He was a doll on a string, and he could almost hear the faint laughter of the ones who owned him echoing around his own mind.

With nothing to do, nowhere to go, and his brief foray into wakefulness plunging him back into exhaustion, he crawled back into his bed and fell asleep.

When he awoke the next morning, there was a clock on his desk to tell him it was seven in the morning and beside it a pile of neatly folded clothes. The clothes were plain, an unmarked white shirt, a black zip-up hoodie, and medium-wash jeans. Not his taste, but at least he wouldn't be walking around in his pajamas. On top of the registration papers—pushed right to the edge of the desk where he couldn't miss it—was a stack of twenty-thousand yen in small bills and a note, _Half for food, half for clothing_.

He frowned, irritated. Someone had come into this place last night and left these items. Someone had been here, had passed him, while he slept. He didn't like that. He didn't like the idea of _anyone_ being so comfortable with the idea of him that they would dare invade his space while he slept. Just who did these people think they were? And what were they really?

He pulled the clothes on because he had no other options and he folded the money and put it in his pocket because he might as well try to make whatever semblance of a life he was living now as peasant as he could. He glanced at the registration packet and felt his stomach turn.

Until he knew just how much control these people had over him—and he had an uncomfortable feeling it was substantial—it was better to do what they wanted. At least as long as it wasn't something too degrading or against his own principles. Attending college like a normal person was a little degrading, but survivable.

Humor. Yugi would be proud of him.

He didn't like the way the shirt sat over his shoulders and against his chest and the denim of the jeans was uncomfortable against his skin, and it only got worse as he moved into the kitchen to drink from the tap. Maybe he would skip his college classes and buy new clothes first. The hoodie wasn't too bad, but it felt too baggy, even if it was a decent color. Leather. What he needed was leather.

The same foreign feeling of reluctance he had felt before came back, though even smaller this time, even more subtle. He almost mistook it for his own feelings again. He shook his head and ground his teeth together. Damn these people for thinking they could play with his mind like this. Damn them. He hoped Ammit devoured their souls.

He strode to the refrigerator and pulled it open, more for something to do than any thought that there would actually be something in there. His restless irritation was rewarded—there were three saran-wrapped bowls each of white rice and miso soup. There was a microwave nearby he was supposed to use to heat them up, but he didn't care, and pulled off the saran-wrap from one bowl of rice and one bowl of miso soup and ate them cold, slamming the refrigerator door hard behind him. He wanted out of this apartment. If it meant he had to conform to the will of his unknown revivers and captors… fine. He would find a way to free himself later.

He left the empty bowls unwashed in the sink and walked to the door—there was a single key hanging from a hook beside it. He ripped it down, shoved it in his pocket, and left, leaving the door open behind him.

He knew Domino City like the back of his hand, which was to say, only vaguely. It was familiar, in the way that the back of your hand was often a part of yourself you took for granted, and you thought you knew it well until it actually came time to test that.

Atem had not really seen the back of his hand for five thousand years, and the layout of Domino City was equally distant in his mind. He was actually more familiar with the back of Yugi's hand than his own, and he wished Yugi was around now to lead him to where he had to go.

He was definitely in the Domino City he knew, though. He recognized the high towers an sky scrapers on the horizon, he recognized the skyline, he recognized the very feel of it. It was the first comfort he'd had since returning to life—here was something familiar, that almost felt like home.

But even if it felt like home, that didn't mean he knew his way around, and by the time he stumbled upon Domino City University it was already 9:05 and he was late for his first class.

The University was a simple building, not unattractive but plain, a small swath of grass and a decorative fence serving as a boundary between the campus and the surrounding city. Two buildings—like plain blocks—stood behind the main establishment, most likely dormitories.

Inside it looked like a high school, with sterile walls, fluorescent lights, tile floors, and a layout that was esoteric to say the least.

He wasn't in much of a hurry—he was already late and it wasn't like he cared over much about his forced and false college education. If he could get past the irritation and indignity of it all, he had to admit that the opportunity to learn more about the world and what had happened to it since his—first—death did seem pleasant to him. But he was far too spiteful to admit that even to himself. Besides, though—hurrying would do him no good, since he had no idea where his classroom was or how to navigate the school.

He managed to come across his classroom, much like the University itself, entirely by accident, within a couple of minutes. He glanced at his schedule, then back at the door. The numbers affixed over the frame matched the ones on his paper, so this was the right classroom. He didn't move. He still wasn't sure he wanted to enter and commit to this charade.

He was spared the responsibility of making up his mind by the professor suddenly raising his voice, barking orders in a mixture of Japanese and English one would only find in a college classroom.

"Alright, who hasn't read their compositions yet?! We should nearly be done, right?"

Atem sighed. As little as he cared about this farce, he didn't want to be rude and walk in while the teacher was talking. So did he enter now—before anyone started reading off their assignments—or did he wait for a more long-term break to slip in?

He sighed, and missed the days before Yugi when he had done whatever he wanted without wondering if his partner would approve or not.

"These are the ones about 'my best friend', right?"

There was a muffled, half-amused, half-exhausted choruses of "_hai _" and "yes". Atem wondered if he really ought to just squeeze himself in now, because who knew how long this might take? He'd spent five thousand years in a puzzle waiting for the afterlife, and now that he was back, he wasn't going to wait for anything anymore.

"Mutou, you're the only one left, right?"

Atem stared at the door in confusion. Was the professor commenting on _him_? But how could he be? He hadn't even entered the room for the first time, yet. Was there someone else called "Mutou", here? Was that the doing of those people, too?

"_Un_! Sorry, professor!"

Atem stiffened. The voice was deeper, but still familiar, a voice he would have recognized from any side of death. It was the voice of the other Mutou, the one he of course should have thought of, but the one he never would have dreamed fate would allow him to find. Yugi.

Yugi cleared his throat and Atem stayed right where he was because he was frozen.

"I have a lot of very good friends," Yugi read, pausing and halting as he worked his mouth around the strange sounds that were the English language*. "Their names is Joey, Tristan, Tea, and Bakura. They have been my friends for many years. I also have friends who were once mean to me, like Seto Kaiba. Also the members of an Egyptian family called 'Ishtar'. But my best friend, my number one best friend, is named Atem. He is Egyptian, and a lot like me. My friends and I would call him my 'other me'. But he was really cool. He were the best duelist of all time, and he never lost a game! Except I beat him once, when it was really important. I met him when I was at my loneliest, and he was always around for me. He isn't with me anymore, and I miss him a lot. But we went through a lot together, and I'll never forget him! Atem is definitely my best friend."

The teacher started correcting Yugi's rough grammar, but it was just a wash of background noise in Atem's mind. He was clutching the stomach of his shirt, where the Millennium Puzzle would have rested before. He knew he meant a lot to Yugi—after all, they had been partners for two years, and Yugi meant nearly everything to Atem. But he hadn't thought he meant _this_ much to him. That even after however much time had passed he would still be so dear in Yugi's heart. It made sense that Yugi meant so much to Atem—for five thousand years Yugi was all he'd had, and even if Yugi's friends had become his own, and he cared for them deeply, it wasn't the same. But Yugi not only had them, but he had his family, and he had had them and would always have them, even after Atem had gone. But there had been sadness in Yugi's voice, genuine sadness, like someone well-loved now long-lost…

"Can I help you?"

Atem—usually acutely aware, collected, and calm—jumped. He blinked rapidly, noticing for the first time the teacher standing in front of him. She smiled kindly at him, guessing by his startled expression that he was a new student.

"I—This is my class," he said, his eloquence and composure knocked from him by Yugi's school assignment. The teacher looked sympathetic and nonjudgemental, which he appreciated immensely. "I got lost, and now I'm late." The teacher nodded in understanding and smiled as she put a hand on the doorknob.

"That's not a problem—Professor Kawada is loud, but he's actually quite friendly," she assured him. She knocked briefly before opening the door, quietly ushering Atem in. Professor Kawada stopped half-way through a loud question to the class about what exactly it was they had covered the day before and glanced at the two of them.

"Oh, you must be the new student!" he proclaimed. He had the look and sound of a PE teacher who took his job too seriously, but he didn't seem like a bad guy. He glanced at Atem's hair and frowned, though only for a moment. Atem didn't blame him—it was a rather unconventional style, and unless Yugi had changed his hair, the two would be nearly identical.

Atem glanced at the students, but most of them were staring at him, too—the ones who weren't were looking at Yugi, as if they had to double check that there really could be two people in the world with the same flamboyant hair style.

"I'm sorry he's late, Junjirou," the other professor said, stepping past Atem and drawing his attention away before he could get a good look at Yugi. He could have ignored her, but part of him was scared to look at his partner, to see how he might have changed. Was he still Atem's little partner? "As he's new, I thought I would give him a quick tour and I lost track of time." She turned to Atem and smiled at him discreetly, and he couldn't help but smile back back and incline his head in thanks. Professor Kawada grunted.

"No worries, Umiko," he said in English. His accent was ridiculous. The other professor—whom Atem hoped he would learn the full name of soon—nodded and took her leave, giving him a quick thumbs-up for good luck.

Even though he was reluctant, Atem turned back to the students, following the eyes of the students who weren't looking at him to find his partner. His heart gave a painful lurch when he saw Yugi—definitely Yugi, absolutely Yugi, _really Yugi_—sitting in the middle of the room. He was the only one not intrigued by the new student, not looking at Atem, but instead out the window, lost in thought. His face looked melancholy, and Atem wondered if Yugi was dwelling on him. He knew he was staring, but he couldn't pull his eyes away. He had been at rest, at peace, happy and with his family. He hadn't missed anyone or anything when he was in the Land of the Dead, and even though he had only been alive for two days, he missed Yugi like he hadn't seen him for a lifetime. It was like his heart truly had ached for Yugi while he was away, but the feeling had only come all at once when he'd awoken.

Getting to see him again… it almost made this whole situation worth it.

The students were flipping their gazes between the two even more quickly, now. Atem could understand why. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, exactly, but whereas Atem had been several years older than Yugi before, and looked more mature for it, the two looked nearly identical now.

There was something else about Yugi that wasn't so pleasant, that made him seem… _off_. But it was so familiar a sight that it actually took Atem a moment to put his finger on it—Yugi was wearing a Millennium Puzzle. Not _the_ Millennium Puzzle—even from a distance Atem could tell that it wasn't the original, but rather a replica, hand-made and crafted with exquisite care. It had slight errors—its proportions were warped to the tiniest degree, and some of the details were a touch off—but it was obvious it was a product of love and memories of years of close observation.

Atem reached for the part of his shirt where the Puzzle would normally have hung.

"Would you like to introduce yourself?" the professor asked, clearing his throat. Atem glanced back at him, then let his hand—barley raised—drop, and nodded. For a moment, he couldn't find his voice.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," he said, glancing out over the students again. It was like a movie—Yugi blinked, and straightened, but he didn't turn, as if whatever had interrupted his thoughts couldn't b real, and hoping it was so would be too cruel. "My name…" Yugi had started turning, his expression distant but quickly coming into focus, "… is Mutou Atem."

In the years that had passed since Atem had passed on and Yugi had gone from a child to a college student, he would have expected Yugi's passionate nature to have smoothed down a bit, for the boy to have adopted some decorum.

Yugi scrambled out of his desk, and when his erratic movements had him nearly stuck, he planted his foot on the seat and sprang _over_ it, hitting the floor on his feet and dashing up to the front of the room. The students stared at him in utter shock—Atem laughed. Then Yugi crashed into him, his arms already around the once-Pharaoh's back. The replica of the Millennium Puzzle stabbed into Atem's torso, but it was a familiar presence, and instead of painful it felt _right_.

Yugi wasn't crying, but it seemed like he wanted to.

"You seem well," Atem noted. He wanted to put a hand on Yugi's head—of course careful not to mess up his hair—but his arms were pinned to his sides by Yugi's hug. Yugi glanced up at him, and he realized with a start that Yugi was only an inch or two shorter than him.

"This isn't another evil scheme to use Ancient Egyptian magic to destroy the world, is it?" Atem smiled crookedly.

"Most people would think this was a dream."

"That was going to be my second guess."

The students were staring at them with open mouths, still shell-shocked. After all, Yugi was usually a pretty polite and quiet guy, unless you got him talking about card games. Atem glanced back at the professor who, too, was staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the two of them. The once-Pharoah couldn't quite fight down a small smirk.

"Excuse us—we haven't seen each other in a long time," he said cooly. The professor, too stunned to do anything, just watched as Atem sidled himself and Yugi, who was still clinging to him, out into the hall.

Yugi didn't let go for a long moment, and now that the initial shock and awkwardness of the stares were gone, Atem found that all he wanted to do was embrace Yugi in return. He managed to lift his arms up and circle them around Yugi, holding him tightly. Even though he was remembering that he'd never actually been able to touch Yugi before, being together like this felt surprisingly natural.

"Are you really back?" Yugi asked his voice muffled against Atem's shoulder.

"Shouldn't you have made sure it was really me before tearing across the classroom to approach me?"

"It's you." Yugi's arms tightened, and Atem dropped his forehead so that it rested against the top of Yugi's head. "… I know you wanted to move on, and I know you being back can't be a good thin, but… I'm really glad." A light smile settled over Atem's lips.

"I've missed you, too."

They stood like that for a little while longer, then Yugi sheepishly pulled away.

"You have your own body now!" he pointed out, like this was a great piece of news and Atem ought to hear it. The once-Pharaoh laughed.

"I do indeed. It's strange," he added. Yugi was starting to grin, though he looked like he didn't want to. Atem was happy that Yugi was.

"I'm still not entirely convinced that I'm not asleep," Yugi admitted. "I can't believe that it's really you. That… you're bak." Atem nodded, the smile starting to slip from his face. The joyous reunion was over—now the problem had to be addressed.

"I don't really understand it myself," he confessed. Yugi frowned, and Atem didn't blame him. They'd dealt too long with ancient and evil magics to accept, without anxiety, a new sign of magic. Especially when they'd thought they'd sealed all of it away.

"Why are you back?" Yugi asked reluctantly. Atem could see that Yugi didn't want to say the words, didn't want to acknowledge that Atem's return was anything but the happy and wonderful continuation of their friendship. But he _was_ asking, and Atem was proud of his partner for it.

"I was called back, but to what purpose, I do not know," he said, shaking his head.

"Do you know how?"

"I don't know that either." Yugi looked very uneasy, and Atem felt much the same. This entire situation was a vortex of dark, unanswerable questions that threatened to pull them both down. Where it dragged them might not be a bad place—but the chances of that were very low. It was foolish to trust Atem's resurrection, and had their situations been reversed, Atem would have found it difficult to accept Yugi's return.

Actually, that was a lie, though admitting it, even to himself, was humiliating. Had their situations been reversed, he would accept anything that would bring Yugi back to him.

"Do you at least know who called you?" Yugi tried.

This Atem could answer, to a degree. He still held the images in his mind of the bowed, cloaked bodies around the platform where he had been revived, their dark shapes in the dim light and yellow sandstone room.

He had been brought by some kind of organization. There were at least twenty members, most likely much more, and they had some degree of rituality. They were structured, structured enough to pull off something as complex and precise as a resurrection, organized enough that they had all acted and dressed the same. They weren't just a rag-tag jumble of people who had been picked off the streets.

They were also affiliated with the magics of Ancient Egypt in some way. Atem doubted there was any other force powerful enough to rip him from his peace in Death, and the room in which he had been resurrected was a sign, as well. But they weren't purists—the room, though he had seen it only briefly, reminded him of a Pharaoh's tomb. It was built of sandstone blocks, with hieroglyphs etched into the walls with all the precision of a Pharaoh's closest attendants. But it was not a tomb. Even though he'd only seen it, only felt it, for a moment, he knew it was only a facsimile, an approximation. The chamber hadn't _felt_ old. The hieroglyphs had been nonsense, set in random patterns. He didn't know where it had been, but it was not a tomb—there was a sense of stillness and silence and stagnation in a real tomb, no matter how much it was disturbed, and that room lacked it.

But regardless of its falsity, the effort it would have gone to to prepare that chamber showed that it was more than a coincidence with Atem's ethnicity, that it wasn't just the only room available for rent for a large group to meet in secrecy. But if Egypt was all that mattered to them, some kind of bloodline of old, they could have revived any Pharaoh. Any of the line who came after him, any who had come before him. Even his father. But they had chosen him—and who was he but the Prince of the Shadow Games? It was his only lasting credit in the eye of mystical history, after all—that he was the young Pharaoh who sealed his soul, memory, and name away to keep back the Shadow Games and the evil that dwelt within it. So it was beyond doubt that whoever these people were, whatever this group was, it had to do with the Shadow Games. That he knew.

And he knew that they were powerful. Powerful enough to bring him back from the Land of the Dead, powerful enough to warp his will. Even if he knew nothing else about them, that alone was enough to know they were dangerous.

But Atem didn't want to tell Yugi that. He didn't want to worry him, especially when there was still so much up in the air, that they didn't know and couldn't guess at. He could also feel a tendril—thin and small and delicate and almost unnoticeable, but Atem was no ordinary person with no ordinary mind—of their will, pushing him towards silence. It would have been so small a thing that no one would have noticed it—but Atem, who had spent an exorbitant and arguably inappropriate amount of time in the Room of his Mind, knew his thoughts and self so well that he was aware of any foreign presence. Normally, the fact that these people who held his strings so artlessly wanted him to keep his tongue still would have led him to do just the opposite—Yugi forgot it sometimes, but Atem was actually a very spiteful person. But this time, he agreed with them. He would not keep the truth from Yugi forever—he couldn't. But for now, this was his burden to bear alone.

"I don't know."

Yugi suddenly hugged him again, and Atem glanced down at him, surprised.

"Those things don't matter," Yugi told him, his voice once again muffled by Atem's shirt. Atem wondered if he could make out Yugi's words only because their minds had been in direct contact for so long. "I'm just so glad I can see you." Yugi didn't hold on so long this time, or so tightly, and after just a moment he stepped back. When he did, there was a strange look on his face, something embarrassed and uncertain and guarded. Atem wanted to ask, but he wasn't sure he had the right. The place where the Millennium Puzzle should have rested against his chest felt hollow. The relationship between him and Yugi had been changed, hadn't it? Yugi might still miss him—Atem might still adore him. But they were no longer Yugi and the Other Yugi, the two souls of one body.

He suddenly felt very uncertain himself.

"How long has it been since I passed on?" he made himself ask. He'd been wondering since he'd woken up, of course, but it felt imperative that he ask the question now. Not because there was a will other than his own that wanted it, but because he needed anything, anything at all, to take him away from this train of thought.

Yugi seemed equally relieved at the subject change.

"It's been four years since I dueled you at the Doors to the Afterlife**," he admitted. Atem both was and was not surprised by the answer. Four years was quite a lot when you were young, and mortal, especially when the two years Atem had spent with Yugi felt like an entire lifeage. On the other hand, he had drifted across tis earth for over five thousand.

"Four years…" Atem muttered. "Then you are…"

"Twenty," Yugi answered for him. He frowned as he realized that that might not have been been what Atem was going to ask. "I'm in college now." He glanced over his shoulder, at the hallway behind him. "… Clearly. Um…"

Atem laughed warmly. He hadn't missed anyone when he was in the Land of the Dead—he had been at peace. But now that he was back, even for so short a time, he had missed Yugi terribly. He really was extremely fond of his young partner.

"That makes you very nearly as old as me," he pointed. Yugi scoffed.

"You're five thousand years-old! I'll never be nearly as old as you." Atem rolled his eyes and put a hand in front of his face. He had missed Yugi so much.

"I meant that I am twenty-one, in a sense," he explained. A light blush appeared over Yugi's cheekbones. "At least, that was how old I was when I sealed my soul away into the Puzzle, and how old I believe I am now."

"Then…" Yugi said, glancing up as he thought it over. "We're not only nearly the same height, we're nearly the same age, too. We're even more nearly-identical than we were before." Atem winced, and Yugi tilted his head. He wasn't concerned—Atem's motion had too-obviously been purposeful and playful—but he was curious.

"Ah, I was hoping you had not our heights." Yugi beamed, like a child caught playing in the mud and all the prouder for the shame he didn't feel. "But tell me, what are you studying, here in college?" Atem continued, still smiling. He liked not thinking about the dark mysteries currently swirling around himself. Yugi was so much more interesting, so much brighter.

"I'm not really sure," Yugi admitted, trying to hide a faint blush. "I joined the school late. I'm still in my first year, so I'm just filling out requirements right now. I'm actually a professional duelist—" Atem arched an eyebrow, impressed, "—and I make money from tournaments. I'm still undefeated, and the 'official King of Games'," he added, a little proudly. Atem smiled, amused by this, and Yugi's blush deepened a touch. "But Grandpa always told me it would be foolish not to go to college, so here I am."

"How is he?"

"Good!" Yugi replied brightly. His enthusiasm was endearing. "Grandpa's as energetic as ever! I help him run the Game Shop, but he really doesn't need much help at all. Which is why he tries not to pay me, so I have to remind him that he technically did hire me, I'm not just volunteering." He laughed, and Atem nodded to himself.

"Game Shop worker, duelist, and student. You seem quite busy, partner."

Yugi ducked his head to hide his sudden embarrassment, and Atem, confused and slightly taken aback, reviewed what he had said that might have caused such a reaction.

… This was the first time he had referred to Yugi as his partner aloud, wasn't it? And as he had realized before, that might not be what their relationship was anymore. Yugi had had four years to move on from him—and even if Atem was still dear, that didn't mean he felt as strongly as he had before. But Yugi would always be Atem's partner, regardless of if they were two people or the same.

"It's more fun when I have things to do, Pharaoh!" he replied, as brightly as his smile. Atem returned the expression.

No matter what or how much had changed, he and Yugi would always be the same, and they would always be partners. The space where the Millennium Puzzle should have been didn't feel so empty anymore.

"How are our friends?"

"They're good as well," Yugi said. He glanced behind him for a moment, then put his back against the wall and slid down so that he was sitting on the floor. Atem sat beside him. He wondered for a moment if Yugi had completely given up on going back to class the same as he had. "Joey's a professional duelist, too, full-time. He moves around all the time, chasing tournaments, but he seems to really enjoy it. We chat online all the time, and hang out a lot whenever he's in Japan or we enter the same tournament. He's won the last three he entered, I heard! I'm really proud of him, he's really an amazing duelist. I always beat him, though," he added with a sly smile. _That_ he had got from Atem, and the once-Pharaoh was oddly proud of this small corruption. "He seems really happy.

"Tristan's a mechanic, and he makes decent money and seems to be doing pretty well. He still lives in the city, and we meet up pretty often to get hamburgers and chat. I don't think I've ever seen him this happy. Oh, he and Serenity are engaged! Or, nearly. They've been dating for a while, and he's asked twice, but she keeps saying she doesn't want to get married quite yet. We keep trying to assure him that it isn't a 'no', but he still gets comically depressed each time she turns him down. Tea told me that she's pretty sure she'll say yes in a year or two, but she likes watching Tristan squirm." He laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.

"And Tea's studying in New York!" he continued, jumping up in his own excitement. It was obvious in his demeanor that Yugi still held romantic feelings for Tea. Atem was both surprised and a little sad that nothing had ever come of that for him. "She got into a really good school, and it sounds like she was really well received! She just got cast in a big show, so I haven't heard from her recently. But she's living her dream! I'm really excited for her.

"Hm, let's see… Bakura moved back to England after graduation. I could tell he missed it. He's in college, too, though he entered when he was supposed to and so is a couple years ahead of me, and we e-mail each other back and forth sometimes. He was a little disoriented after the Millennium Ring—and the spirit that lived inside it—were gone, but he seems to have gotten on his feet pretty well. Last I heard from him, he'd taken a trip with his father to Paris and was having a good time."

He came to a stop and glanced up at the ceiling, reminiscing and thinking about his friends.

"That all sounds wonderful," Atem said. "I'm glad that our friends are doing so well. What of the others, Mai Valentine and Duke Devlin and Seto Kaiba?" Yugi lifted his hand and tapped his fingers for each name.

"Mai's a professional duelist, just like she was back when we first met her. She's been doing well, and she's one of the tournaments' most popular personalities. She's in lots of commercials and TV spots, and she has a following on the internet like she's an idol. Her and Joey are dating 'secretly', and it's the Duel Monsters' world's favorite bit of gossip." Yugi was too distracted trying to remember everyone to notice the way Atem's eyes grew wide. "Duke Devlin's been kept really busy with Dungeon Dice Monsters, which really took off in America, so Industrial Illusions has him working constantly. He sends me e-mails from time to time, though, along with demos and promotional items. I think he's doing okay, but it's hard to tell because they've got him running around so much. I can't imagine he'd want it any other way, though. Kaiba's running Kaiba Corp., which is still the largest company in the world and doing strong. They sponsor more than half of all the world's Duel Monsters tournaments, and almost eighty percent of Japan's. Mokuba works with him, and though I hardly get to talk to Kaiba, Mokuba and I chat from time to time, and he assures me that the both of them are doing well, and Kaiba's itching to beat me in the next tournament we enter together."

There was still a smile on his face, but Atem could hear it in his voice and see it in his expression that he missed his friends, and he was lonely. They hadn't grown apart, per se, but they had grown more distant. Yugi's hands were wrapped around the puzzle, and Atem was reminded of how badly he had wanted, before, to promise Yugi that he would never leave him alone. Maybe this could be a second chance to stay in Yugi's life.

The silence between them stretched, and while Atem would have enjoyed it being filled with Yugi's voice, it wasn't uncomfortable or awkward. He was sure Yugi was doing the same thing he himself was, anyway—just getting used to being near him again.

"You know…" Yugi started tentatively. Atem glanced at him. The silence had ended, but it had taken the pleasant comfort with it. "… I had thought that you _couldn't_ be brought back. Not… not after those doors shut behind you." Atem glanced at his intertwined fingers, perched on his knees . Yugi had hoped he would turn back before the doors had closed, then?

"Neither did I," he admitted, and there was something about the solemnness of his voice that reminded him of his early times with Yugi; not the sadism and insanity they had both conveniently "forgotten", but the early times in Battle City, when "Yami" hadn't had the time to do anything beyond brood about his past and his desire to move on. He had so taken his time with Yugi for granted back then. He still remembered the exact way the doors had looked when they'd found them, the way they'd moved when they'd opened for him like the open arms of an embrace, the light that had engulfed him as he didn't even consider looking back. "I had thought that when I passed on I would be free from any reach of this world. Finally at peace. Finally free. But clearly we were both wrong."

Yugi didn't reply, and he glanced at him, concerned. Yugi was staring at his own knees, his face slightly pale like he had taken ill. He looked discouraged, almost… rejected.

"I'm so glad to see you, though," Atem added immediately, understanding what he had done. Yugi jumped as Atem took his hands, but he didn't try to pull away. "Being reunited with you has made this evil venture—for I fear that it cannot be denied that my resurrection is not a sign of good—worth it. Being able to see you again brings immense joy to my heart. And the chance to see our friends, as well, makes me very happy." Yugi looked better, but not entirely recovered from Atem's near-condemnation of everything having to do with the realms of the living.

"… Pharaoh," he asked, and Atem hoped desperately it was a question he could answer for him, "… what is the Land of the Dead like?"

Atem started to speak, he prepared the words that he wanted to say. But no words came. Images came, though, images and feelings and memories of a world entirely without meaning or depth or thought or memory, but a place that resonated with him anyway. He gazed into the distance, thinking through these overwhelming thoughts and images, and he was only returned to reality by the steady pain of his teeth sinking into his tongue. Maybe that was another reason—on top of many—that people were not supposed to be brought back from the dead. The Land of the Dead was not a place meant for ordinary human comprehension, and dwelling on it too long, even just now, had felt like falling into an abyss.

"I don't… think I should say," he answered, finally, after what seemed a very long time. He glanced at Yugi, who had gone slightly pale, like Atem had just finished telling a ghost story. He was starting to wonder if he'd spoken some of his unintelligible thoughts aloud, somehow, when Yugi let out a small laugh.

"Is it that bad?" he asked, in good humor. A small smile came over Atem's face, too.

"No, not quite," he replied. Yugi stopped laughing, but he still seemed in good spirits. Atem was glad. "It was not that bad at all, actually… Truly, the only downside to it was that I did not have you or our other friends there at my side. … Not that I wish for you all to be dead," he added, and just as he had hoped, Yugi caught his attempt at a joke and seemed pleased with it. Atem and humor, who would have thought they could go together?

Yugi gave a brief laugh as he realized something.

"I never actually got to ask why you're in college, anyway," he observed. Atem pulled the school packet from where he had put it in his pocket and, after unfolding it, handed it to Yugi.

"The people who resurrected me enrolled me," he explained. Yugi looked over the schedule within interest. His eye caught on the line "Mutou Atem" and widened. Atem was both pleased and relieved that Yugi seemed as touched by the family name as he had felt. "I'm not certain what their aim is, but I feel that I must go along with it for now until I understand more."

Yugi just nodded, still looking the packet over. He gave a sudden cry of excitement and pointed to a block on the page with the schedule.

"You're in my Calculus class!" he said enthusiastically. Atem glanced over his shoulder and frowned. It was a class in the afternoons, and it only met on Mondays and Wednesdays, and today was Tuesday. Damn.

"What interest do you have in an ancient ruler?"

"What?" Yugi was staring at him like he'd just said something ridiculous, and Atem realized that he actually had no idea what calculus was at all, and that he really may have said something entirely ridiculous. He felt the blood start to rise to his cheeks, and he hoped any trace of a blush would be hidden by the pigment in his skin. Blushing was _not_ a dignified activity for a ruler of men.

"I'm glad that we share another class together," he said, quickly diverting the subject, though not terribly artfully. Yugi blinked a couple times, then looked back at the schedule.

"I don't know how advanced your math skills would be, being from Ancient Egypt," Yugi started; oh, so Calculus was a kind of math? ", but you'll have me to help you, so you should be okay. Too bad we don't share any other classes, though." He handed the papers back to Atem, who was suddenly even less interested in his other classes than he had been before. Except for calculus—he might not have found math as engaging a subject as ancient conquerers, but if Yugi was there, that was all that mattered. He wondered if the organization that had raised him would mind too much if he skipped all his other classes. "You have a chemistry class, though, and I know you're really good at that."

"Oh—is that what 'chem' is?" he asked. Yugi grinned.

"You really don't know how to navigate the modern world without me, do you?" he asked, laughing. Atem frowned, but it was playful.

"I've only been here for a day on my own. Otherwise I've been with you." Yugi was about to respond, but throughout the hallways voices suddenly raised, all at once. Atem was alarmed, but Yugi just glanced up at a clock on the wall and scowled.

"Class is over," he explained, and sure enough, students were beginning to emerge from classrooms, chatting animatedly or hurrying to classes that were across the campus. Atem frowned and pulled his legs in closer to his chest to avoid being stepped on.

"I didn't hear a bell."

"Colleges don't have bells." Atem's face screwed up, then he let out a sigh.

"I was just beginning to grasp high school." Yugi laughed and, already on his feet, offered Atem a hand up. It felt odd, having Yugi be the one helping him to his feet, when it had usually been the other way around, in a figurative sense. Although the number of times Yugi had saved him was very nearly equal to the number of times he had saved Yugi. Yugi always seemed to forget that, as well.

"We both have class now," Yugi said apologetically. He waved absently at the students from his—their—English class as they exited the room, looking at them with open confusion and curiosity. "Yours is over in Wing D, on the sixth floor. Go that way—" he pointed, "—and you should find signs that'll lead you over there. I'm in the opposite direction." He suddenly pulled a pen from gestured for Atem's registration packet. Atem handed it to him, and on the back of the School Policies sheet scribbled something down before ripping it off and handing it again to Atem. "After your next class you're done for the day, so you should call my cell phone so we can meet up, okay?"

Atem took the scrap of paper and looked at it before shoving it—gingerly—in his pocket.

"That's alright," he said, and his voice had the same gravity to it that he had noticed with such distaste before. Yugi noticed it, too, and frowned, like a puppy that had been denied being pet. "I have some things that I must attend to. Go about your day as normal." Being placed in the same classes as Yugi was coincidence—it had to be. The likelihood that the people who had resurrected him had wanted him to attend classes with Yugi was incredibly slim. It was a mistake, it had to be, an oversight in their planning. And so the less time Atem spent around him, the better. He had to keep Yugi's presence in his life a secret, or at least as much of a secret as he could. If they found out, they might make Atem leave, might put him somewhere else. Or if they couldn't move him, they might try to move Yugi. And he might not survive that. No, the secret had to be kept. It was safer for both of them that way. Safer for Yugi.

"Oh… alright…" Yugi said. He saw through Atem's thin excuse of "things to do", but he couldn't see that Atem was trying to keep him out of danger. Good. Yugi's time as the world's hero and the world's martyr was over, and he wasn't going to let it return. He would keep Yugi safe. He would let Yugi be happy, and normal.

Atem took out the paper with Yugi's number and flashed it for a moment.

"I'll keep good care of this, though. Don't worry. I'll see you in English and calcalus tomorrow," he added, as way of goodbye. He put the paper back in his pocket and turned in the direction Yugi had pointed.

"It's… calculus…" Yugi muttered half-heartedly, correcting Atem's pronunciation. "… Bye, Pharaoh." He didn't move for a while, just staring in the direction Atem had gone.

Atem didn't look back.

*I'm going to make a preemptive apology here for the oddity that's about to ensue. I don't know the level of English taught in Japanese compulsory schools, so I don't know how good he should or should not be at English. To be completely honest, I'm kind of poking fun at myself here, and playing with language—it was really fun trying to pseudo-translate the lines in my head and figure out what I could say in Japanese, and then switching it back to what he would be able to say in English. Similarly, adding little mistakes that are obvious hints of Japanese grammatical patterns ("an Egyptian family called 'Ishtar' " = イシュターというイジプト人家族, roughly) was a blast. So… yes. (Also, that awkward moment when you're using the American names and describing everything in Japan! ;;; As I put it in my original notes: "We just entered a Translation Twilight Zone") ((Also, now that I think about it, I bet Yugi would actually be pretty darn good at English, as he's a professional duelist [oops spoilers?] and would play plenty of tournaments in America and other English-speaking places. But… this part is just too cute for me to give up ;;;))

** Mm, yes, the TIME DISCREPANCY. I don't… actually know how much time has passed in YGO! ? I'm pretty sure Yugi is 16 at both the beginning and end of the manga—which is awkward, because it's canon that at least one year has passed (Joey comments that they first met Yami Bakura "last year" when Yami Bakura shows back up on the blimp for the Battle City Finals in the manga). So the limit that my poor little brain can go to is that two years passed—I don't want Yugi to get TOO old. So this would make him seventeen at the end of the original story (no, I did not forget how to do math, I can make it work, shhh). As four years have passed, this would make him about twenty-one (but again I'm doing some weird rounding to make it so that he's only twenty). As the originally chosen four years was just an aribitrary choice, I could always move it back to three, but I'm oddly sentimental towards arbitrary decisions and try to change them as little as possible. So… yeah. :| (I treat my Arbitrary Fictional Choices as near-gospel) Aaaand… that's that. : | (It's also how I can take someone 16 and only age them 4 years even though 6 have elapsed [wait…]) YES IT'S A PLOT HOLE, YES IT'S STUPID, HUSH IT'S FAN-FICTION I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT


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